As an aside... (I know I know I've said it before) I still think we should
use the American Heritage Dictionary as a guide for pronunciations because
it is a perfect compromise of British and American Englishes. It uses
rhoticisms, it features indications of when to use up/ado, when to use
err/array, when to use ah/awe, and it's easily checkable via
www.dictionary.com. Check it out...

So basically, when anyone isn't sure about how a word should be spelled when
writing something for mass consumption, simply look it up there.

Hugh B

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe"
To:
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 7:06 PM
Subject: [shavian] Re: Wow, it's been a long time


> --- In shavian@yahoogroups.com, "Hugh Birkenhead" wrote:
> > P.S. I like the Shaw poster - it's great stuff and I'd like one for
myself!
>
> Thank you!
>
> > [dIpends] perhaps could be [dipends] but it doesn't matter
> > [anrIzanabal] should be [unrIzanabal] with an initial 'u'
>
> I say [dIpendz], though I could change the first vowel to better show the
actual stress.
> And I wrote [anrIzanabal] because, for some reason, when I said it to
myself, I didn't
> stress the initial vowel.  I had it the other way, and then I changed it .
. . .  I think I'm
> really losing my mind.
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Hi Carl

I finished the Shaw transliteration of "The Tower of Babel" on Hugh's
Ikonboard and I noticed some minor variations between our
translations of the story. Nothing too significant. The theme of G-ds
ultimate power still comes thru. Anyway let me know if you have any
questions.
Regards, Paul V.

As I was sitting in chemistry class today, I looked up at the periodic table and
wondered what it would look like in Shavian.  I thought it would be rather interesting
to see all the elements marked with Shavian letters.  That's when I decided I have to
make one.

But then I started thinking about how I would actually go about assigning letters to
the elements.  This is where it gets complicated.

In case anyone is not well acquainted with it, the Periodic table lists all the known
elements in order of their atomic number (number of protons), each having a one- or
two-letter "symbol" that represents it.  In the current system, the first letter is always
capitalized, the second (if there is one) is always lowercase.  This makes it easy to tell
where one symbol ends and the next begins because each starts with a capital letter.

You probably already knew that, but I'm just making sure.  And it's a good lead-in.
^_~

Anyway, this presents a problem for transliteration, since Shavian has only one case. 
I even thought of the idea of starting every symbol with a tall or deep letter, and
making any additional letter short.  But it just doesn't work with some elements.

Namer does could be used, perhaps, but that could cause confusion with the
hydration dot, which is used to show how much water is in a crystal.

But I thought maybe they should just each have exactly two letters.  Then there would
be no confusion.  I'm not really sure, though.  It'll be interesting to see what others
think about it.

In message <20040330211055.80623.qmail@web41003.mail.yahoo.com>, carl
easton writes
>Hi Hugh,
>
>I agree we Shavian Users must use the American Heritage Dictionary for
>Formal Shavian pronouncation, as you have indicated due to it's
>equivalence of Shaw Letters and balance of Brittish and American accents.
>
>regards,
>
>Carl

As someone from the North of England who is educated I thought that the
accent that was preferred by Shaw was "a pronunciation to resemble that
recorded of His Majesty our late King George V and sometimes described
as Northern English".

I was going to put a joke in here about the colonials not getting above
their station but I thought that probably wouldn't be registered as a
joke by some.

John Warner
--
John Warner

john.warner@leatherbear.demon.co.uk